Pupils are campaigning to make the rebuilt Castle Rushen High School as eco-friendly as possible.

The petition, drawn up by the Isle of Man Student Climate Network, attracted 500 signatures within days of being drawn up.

It says: ’In years to come, Castle Rushen school will be completely remodelled and modernised to fit a new generation of children.

’So far, the board has been given two different types of school - a regular school that is cheaper to build but more expensive in the long run, or an eco friendly and sustainable school that will be marginally more expensive in the short term, but will save lots of money once it’s up and running.

’Not only that, but the eco-friendly school would be saving the planet, and surely an example of what the Isle of Man is capable of doing (seeing as we’re a biosphere).’

The petitioners say they believe that the parents and students alike should get a say about where children, families or friends will be studying when they begin attending the new school.

’The IOMSCN believe it’s time for a change in how the island is running its government buildings,’ the petition says.

’We want an eco-friendly, sustainable school that will become a comfortable and safe place for students to be educated in.’

IOMSCN member Archibald Elliott, a Castle Rushen student, said: ’Our aim is to ensure the new school building is built to the highest possible eco-friendly standards and that they also re-use items from the current schools such as the new projectors that were put in at the start of this year and cost just under £1,500 each.

’This would also help to keep the costs low.

’We hope that the Department of Education and the Treasury will choose this option that is better for the environment.’

Education Minister Graham Cregeen applauded the students’ support for what he said he was also hoping to achieve at the Castletown school.

’This is what we’ve been going for all along,’ he said. ’Treasury has asked to be given different options.’

phase

The first phase is to create new playing fields and Mr Cregeen wants there to be ground source heat pumps and piping - which will supply power for the school building - beneath the fields. For this he hopes there is Tynwald support and then a planning application will be submitted before February.

’It’s nice students support us,’ he said. ’We want to make sure it’s well insulated, whether what we have will generate enough electricity to power the school remains to be seen.

’There are things like photo voltaic cells, the technology might change in the next few years. We’ll have to see whether we can can afford it. There has got to be a balance, we need to consider both the environment and cost.’

He added the completion date for the new school should be 2025.

The network has flexed its muscle recently in various ways. including a series of students’ protests. Students are frustrated by the intransigence of the Manx government in relation to environmental policies.

Archibald, 15, said: ’We’re hoping to tell the public how they can help the environment and what they can do to ensure that their carbon footprint is as low as possible, and also try to put pressure on the government to make quicker and more effective action plans for the climate change mitigation policies.’

’I read the climate mitigation policy and saw how little they were doing. I was speaking to the Environment Minister earlier and he was telling me how they recognised that it wasn’t doing enough a long time ago.

So I asked him: "If you realised it wasn’t doing much a long time ago why didn’t you change it?".’

â?¢ To sign the petition see https://www.change.org/p/iom-department-of-education-make-the-new-castle-rushen-an-eco-friendly-one.